Smile

I just transitioned into a new role at my company which meant I had to move to a new cube (again - it was my 3rd time in 2007). I was good this time and decorated my cube with some pictures of friends. One of these pictures is at eye level when I look just to the right of my computer screen. It's from the Fall of 1999. It's a picture of a group of us that went to the GA Tech versus UVA game in Charlottesville. 2.718, loud and CLM are there along with a few others (Jesus hair, loud and 2.718's previous roommate who drove an Acura Integra and a few others I don't know their names anymore). Anyway, the reason I'm writing about this picture is that I just noticed loud's face. Everyone in the picture except loud is smiling big. Not loud. She's smirking – like, why am I here with these bozo's? It makes me smile every time I look at it.

Dreamgirls

I went to see this movie with my British friend and a few of her friends last Thursday. It turned out to a fun night except that next time we'll choose a movie that starts later. We'll head to the sushi place around 6pm and then to the movie around 7pm. I crammed down some salmon and edamame. It's much more enjoyable if I have time to taste my food :)

The movie itself was interesting. If you haven't seen it yet, you should know that it's a musical. When I say it's a musical, I don't just mean that it has music in it. It actually has songs that are sung that move the dialogue along - like a musical on Broadway. I wasn't expecting that so at first, I thought it was a bit cheesy. Once I figured out that was what was supposed to be happening, I liked the movie a lot better. The only other criticism I would have is that it was too long!

Eamonn's, A Dublin Chipper

In a previous post, I mentioned that I'd be checking out Eamonn's in Alexandria a couple of weeks ago. Well, I did make it there but was out of town right after. I didn't have time to get a post onto the blog. Here's my review:

First, of all, the name is not 'ee-mahns'. I was corrected by my English friend, HS. It is 'ay-mahns'. Of course, when ordering, you never have to say the name of the establishment so there's no worry of embarrassing yourself. As a reminder, the specialty of the house is fish and chips with special sauces. But, according to HS, the only way to eat fish and chips is with homemade tartar sauce and malt vinegar. It turns out they're good together which I had never tried before. I got the small fish which was plenty for a meal. Both the fish and the fries were fried perfectly. This meal is definitely one you shouldn't have very often but is fun when you do. The other thing not to miss at Eamonn's is the candy. They have a wide selection of English ones. HS was ecstatic when we walked into the place because she hadn't seen these candies since she had arrived in the US over 3 months earlier. We bought a chocolate orange and another one I can't remember the name. I was much too full that night to eat them so we ate them another day. After dinner, we decided we weren't ready to head back home so we went to Restaurant Eve. That's the place that is owned by the same guy that just opened Eamonn's. They have the best sour apple martini I've ever tasted! So, that's what we had. We just sat there and talked and had fun. Then, we headed home and had to go to sleep since the next day was a day of work.

Crabbing in the Chesapeake Bay

I actually got a lot done this weekend even though I went crabbing yesterday afternoon. MTH got up at 6:45am yesterday to go for a 31 mile bike ride! I got up around 7:30am and straightened the first floor, washed all of my clothes, ran 3 miles, showered and packed for our trip to go crabbing. We left around noon to head for Annapolis. SM (MTH's friend) and JR (SM's girlfriend), called us and told us to meet them at Sandy Point State Park. We first tried crabbing from a pier but we had no bites. The reason we started on the pier is that the marina wouldn't rent us a boat because it was too windy. It didn't really seem that windy to us so we were confused. After 30 minutes of no bites, SM decided to go ask again about renting a boat. For some reason, they changed their mind. We headed out into the bay in our little dinghy. At our first stop, we brought in 3 crabs (none for me but 1 for MTH). At our second stop, we got several more of which 1 was by me. In the end, we had 10 crabs with only 1 coming from me. For some reason, I just wasn't very good at crabbing. Then, we headed back to SM and JR's place near the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. Since we only had 10 crabs, we decided they would be our appetizer and then we'd go out to a seafood restaurant in Fells Point called John Steven Ltd. It was interesting cooking those things. JR and MTH just put them straight into boiling beer and Old Bay seasoning and covered them with a lid. They came out perfect. Then, the fun part - opening them up and finding the meat. We read on the internet that only about 15% of their weight is actual meat! Overall, it was a successful trip as we had a great starter of crab meat and then went to the restaurant for steamed shrimp, steamed scallops, steamed mussels, garlic bread and seafood quesadillas.

Girls' Weekends

I had a great time in Chicago last weekend. In the past, I stayed in the downtown area with the high rises. It's a great place to be and hang out but is definitely different from Lincoln Park where I stayed this time. My friend, AS, just moved there in early August. She finished business school in the spring. She's loving it so far. I met all the people who came to the weekend at some point during my career at my current job. 4 out of 5 of them I met in 1999. 4 out of 6 (including myself) are statisticians. It's amazing that we're all still friends and all still get together. We've been having these gatherings for 3 years now. There have been 4 in total. Two were at my place. The first one when we lived in the 625 square foot condo. The second one in our house so we had a little more room. The third one was in Boston. The only thing missing at this last one was MAK. She couldn't make it since she now lives in SF and travel is much more expensive. Usually the main items we focus on are: food, shopping and spa treatments. This time was no different. We had Chicago style pizza on Friday night. We went to the Urban Oasis on Saturday morning. And we hit the Magnificent Mile on Saturday afternoon. Saturday night we did something different. We went to the show put on by Second City. It was awesome. I definitely recommend that any time you're in Chicago, check it out! It's like being on the set of Saturday Night Live but much smaller with beer available throughout the show.

At the end of the weekend, we discussed where we'll meet next. We had two diametrically opposed ideas: Las Vegas or a yoga retreat. Hopefully, a year from now, I'll be updating you on that trip.

Things I Learned in Iceland

- Hot dogs (or pylsur as they are called in Icelandic) are not as ubiquitous as the guide books imply.

- Even the bathrooms in the national parks are clean!

- Buy beer and wine at the duty free.

- Renting an apartment instead of reserving a hotel is key.

- Just because an Icelandic word sounds like an English word doesn't the food it's describing is the same thing - beikon is not bacon (although it does taste good)

- Definitely rent a car to see the countryside.

- Put conditioner and a swimming cap over hair before going into the Blue Lagoon

- Definitely check out the black sand beach in Vik.

- Need to go back in order to see the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights)